Government's indecision on Gaza

Op-ed: Netanyahu and Lieberman have been threatening to strike Hamas with ‘the hardest blow’ imaginable for the past few weeks. However, ‘the hardest blow’ would be dropping an atomic bomb, and between that and what we have seen from IDF so far, there is still a wide range of military options which have not been exercised.

Yonatan Yavin|Published: 10.23.18 , 00:02

Dear residents of the Gaza border community, can I ask a small favor? Take a look out the window for a moment. The view you see is very strange because there is no fire or thick smoke. If there is fire, then it is probably coming from the Lehava emergency conference, which they held to discuss the wedding of Lucy Aharish and Tsahi Halevi,
and if there is smoke, don’t worry, it is probably coming from the stoners who attended the InDnegev festival nearby.

If the skies are indeed clear and the wheat is growing then it is thanks to Quartermaster Avigdor Lieberman, and to the one who is warming the seat of the prime minister—both of whom, have been threatening Hamas
for the past few weeks.

Indeed, they threatened. What kind of threats were they? The sexiest kind—the implied threats. Benjamin “We will defeat Hamas” Netanyahu said sweetly :"Hamas has apparently not internalized the message ... We are edging closer to a different kind of activity in Gaza."

(Photo: Hagai Dekel)

What "message" exactly has the most right-wing government in our history sent to the circus of fire that has been on exhibition there for months? And what does "a different kind of activity" mean? Is it like the “Different kind of sex" poem by Yona Wallach? A war is going to break out? Is the reoccupation of Gaza on the agenda? Let's talk openly, yes or no? Because we are already very tired, as the poem says.

What did Avigdor "48 hours" Lieberman hint at?

"No stone was left unturned, and we have passed the point of no return… We tried to exhaust every possibility ... We must deliver the hardest blow imaginable on Hamas,” the defense minister said two weeks ago.
What do you mean we have “exhausted every possibility?” Listen, it does not look like that, and if what we’ve seen so far is all that the mighty IDF and the sophisticated arms of our security establishment are capable of—well, then we are in even bigger trouble than we thought. And what exactly is Lieberman proposing? More ambiguity.

(Photo: AFP)

“We must deliver the hardest blow imaginable on Hamas.” The harder blow would be dropping an atomic bomb. Here is an easier option—carpet bombing with a pinch of napalm. Here’s an option on a level higher—the reoccupation of the strip and the establishment of our military in the Gaza mud for years to come. There are many other military options before we reach “the hardest blow.”

The problem is that Lieberman, Netanyahu and the Security Cabinet has so far refrained from striking Hamas even with the easiest of blows. Although the snipers on the border fence might shoot dead some teenagers, but the leaders of Hamas? They safely drink their tea with salvia.

(Photo: AFP)

Hold on. Do not run to your safe rooms.
The Cabinet continues to give the ceasefire arrangement negotiations more and more chances. Why? Do you want to threaten in the morning and then not deliver on your threats at night, because there might be elections on the smoky horizon? We understand. From now on, slogan balloons and promise kites will be launched, but once the truth is revealed, they will land on our fields as well.

In the film Halfon Hill Doesn't Answer, Victor Hasson asked his daughter to prepare him "the suit of threats." But he, unlike our greedy couple, pursued his bitter enemy Sergio Constanza all the way to Sinai.